So last night on 60 Minutes (what I have to admit I’ve become addicted to as the best long form journalism still being produced,) Anderson Cooper did a very interesting story about the after effects of the Paris attack.
Shouldn’t come as any surprise that “Paris” is now a “style” of terror attack. In the same way it has also been branded for fashion and food.
There are two reasons why.
One is that the terrorists banked upon old methodologies from law enforcement in the response to the simultaneous attacks going off all at the same time.
The thugs knew that multiple attacks in multiple areas would create not just chaos in the population but even more so for the response from law enforcement.
Incredibly French police waited nearly 35 minutes from when they arrived at the Bataclan theater before they decided to enter and take down the killers.
This hesitation-al pause has been seen in multiple scenarios in American active shootings as well. One of the most recent being the US Naval Yard shooting. Taking 1:09 before getting the shooter down.
Two is that the terrorists also knew the population were sitting ducks, with few to none of them capable defending themselves.
With that as the background and context for the piece, Anderson goes on a training exercise with the NYPD where they demonstrate for him the changing challenges, and hence the new techniques that are undoing upwards of half a century of current thinking about active shootings.
Cooper sits down with Police Commissioners from NYC and WashDC and gets them to confess that part of the challenger of protections large cities against terror is the inability to out imagine the evil doers.
Which led him to one short bit of conversation that seemed to me to be one of the most damning indictments ever heard about the gun control lobby–particularly coming from one of the largest and most important law enforcement operations in the nation: DC.
She more or less admits two very meaningful facts.
1. In active shooting scenarios most of those who are killed or severely injured are rendered so within the first ten minutes of the shooting. (In the US Naval Yard 10 of the 12 who died were dead within the first 6 minutes.)
2. The most effective means of preventing injury and death is to take down the shooter as aggressively as possible. (Which even the DCPD Commissioner admitted is the opposite of what we mostly hear from law enforcement.)
Cooper was trying to establish the rationale for why society has such a need for more of a “response squad” like militarized police force –especially in cities where active terror is becoming an increasing reality.
He made the case quite well given the events of Paris, followed on the heels with Mali.
But given the two amazing admissions of the DCPD, my mind and longtime belief/assumptions concerning unarmed populations jumped right back to the forefront of my brain.
If death comes quickly in the live or active shooter scenarios, and if the best prevention of injury and death is the strategy of taking the live shooter down as quickly and as effectively as possible, then the solution seems pretty simple.
More guns by law abiding people will always create more caution amongst those who have guns illegally and for illegal purposes.
More guns prevalent throughout law abiding populations will be an added discouragement for both terrorists and criminals alike.
Now it’s interesting to hear that top law enforcement in essence agree with such a premise…
